Kristol: ‘Sober, Serious’ People Want Over 100,000 Troops In Iraq When Bush Leaves Office

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/09/kristol-sober-serious/

Kristol: ‘Sober, Serious’ People Want Over 100,000 Troops In Iraq When Bush Leaves Office

Tomorrow, Gen. David Petraeus will testify to Congress to provide his perspective on the escalation in Iraq. The Washington Post reports this morning that the White House political office has been coordinating with Petraeus for months to market Bush’s strategy to the public:

Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad to map out ways of selling the surge.

Petraeus’ testimony should be seen in that light — another way of “selling the surge.” The American public, however, isn’t fooled about what’s going on. 66 percent say Bush will stick with his policy no matter what Petraeus says, and 53 percent say Petraeus will try to make things in Iraq look better than they are.

This morning, Bill Kristol spoke plainly about the White House’s intentions. “The truth is we are going to have over 100,000 troops in Iraq when George Bush leaves office,” Kristol said. He added “sober Democrats who want to be serious about” Iraq and “who want to think about the consequences of losing” are coming to the view that “of course you can’t just pull out.”

Watch it/read transcript at link~

The Washington Post reports that CentCom chief Admiral William Fallon has been pushing a plan to substantially slash the number of U.S. combat forces in Iraq, and has been engaged in a bitter clash with Petraeus:

{H}is efforts offended Petraeus’s team, which saw them as unwelcome intrusion on their own long-term planning. The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.

“Bad relations?” said a senior civilian official with a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the century. … If you think Armageddon was a riot, that’s one way of looking at it.”

Only “sober and serious” flacks for the White House believe that a long-term presence in Iraq is a strategically sound decision.